Blending of Music Instruments: Listener’s Rating and Signal Analysis of Violin Ensemble

Title: Blending of Music Instruments: Listener’s Rating and Signal Analysis of Violin Ensemble
Authors: Jithin Thilakan
Source URL: https://www.timbreandorchestration.org/tor/modules/video-series/symposiums-workshops/y2/thilakan

Abstract:

The impression of ensemble sound and blending between musical instruments is an important feature relevant in music composition, orchestration, stage acoustics adaption, and virtual acoustics. Within a larger project, we perform research on musical instruments and the effect of blending. As a first example, we investigated string ensembles consisting of 6 to 12 violins which can be considered as complex and incoherent sound sources. Recordings of individual instruments have been conducted in Montreal, Geneva, and Detmold concert houses with different string ensembles. In addition, the acoustic properties of the concert venues have been measured using various techniques including impulse response and STIPA measurements, SDM method, and acoustic camera recordings. Further investigations included listening tests to investigate the predictability of the number of violins played, the blending between sound sources, and the impression of ‘ensemble sound’. To understand the influence of the room on these factors, the listeners were distributed to different seating positions in the concert house and room acoustic conditions were varied using artificial reverberation realized by a WFS system. Along with that, the distribution of the sound sources on the stage was also varies to know the influence of positions of musicians on stage. Using the test responses, the variation of predictability of the number of violins with acoustic environments, the threshold of the number of violins needed for the emergence of ensemble sound, and the factors influencing the blending between sources are currently analyzed. A microscopic level study of blending on the source signals is carried out using audio signal processing methods.